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One of the best places in the entire city of Knoxville, Tennessee is McKay’s Used Book Store, and one of the best parts of McKay’s is the “club cookbook” section, an endlessly-entertaining collection of plastic comb bindings.   

Most are from Knoxville churches and garden clubs, but several have travelled long and intriguing journeys from far-off places, like Elvira.  

Many of them are quite old.  A few are even mimeographed. Some have food stains on them.   Many are annotated — “bake longer;” “too much salt, use half;” “goes good with pork.“ 

Men cook, too, of course, but these cookbooks are overwhelmingly about women. 

Women created or preserved the recipes; women solicited and collected them; and women sold and bought the cookbooks, some packing up and moving with them all the way from Elvira. 

Or else mailing them from Elvira to their cousins in Knoxville who don’t cook, but kept them on their shelves for several years any way in case of nosy visitors from Elvira.  Who thankfully died, finally, so the damned cookbooks could be shuffled off to McKay’s. 

It’s interesting to see how recipes have changed over the years.  Who makes potato chip sandwiches these days?  Or casseroles, pretty much in general? 

Or maybe women have changed?  I’m trying to figure too many things out, here.  I read these cook books looking for clues about the women who wrote them, but I’m also looking for clues about myself. 

I’m not working very much.  Should I be cooking a lot, instead? 

And do I channel Martha Stewart and use fresh-shaved  parmesan and parchment paper, or should I return to a thriftier era and make tuna casseroles topped with potato chips, instead?

Listen:  this next thing really is related. 

A friend showed me some hand-made Christmas ornaments the other day, which she’d bought from an older woman who laboriously cuts and contructs the tiny, multi-dimensional things from old Christmas cards.  Dips all the tiny little edges in glitter for a slightly tacky additional touch.

My first reaction:  how pitiful, and also a little strange.  A little embarrassing, even.

I would not spend that much time cutting up and re-assembling old Christmas cards.  I’d buy Certified Craft Materials instead, or just buy some cool ornament that had been hand-crafted by an impoverished woman in Peru, even if it were made out of old Christmas cards.

Aha. 

I wonder if being an American, particularly an American woman, is these days basically an impossible proposition. 

What do you think?

HEAD COACH – FOOTBALL-Men’s Athletics- Pay Grade 45, DOE&Q, Extensive experience as a Professional or Collegiate Division I football coach. Knowledge of NCAA rules and regulations. Possesses extensive experience in collegiate athletic recruiting. Ability to interact with the public and at necessary functions to promote good public relations for the football program. Highest degree of honesty and integrity in dealing with student-athletes, coaches, media, public and administration. Knowledge of SEC and University rules and regulations. Extensive ability to recruit student-football athletes and ability to maintain knowledge of applicable NCAA and SEC rules and regulations. Interested candidates should contact Neinas Sports Services, 6630 Gupark Drive, Suite 200, Boulder, Colorado 80301. (303) 530-5566. Fax: (303) 530-5371.

The University of Tennessee must be really cutting corners, as they are now  hoping to hire a new head football coach for only $45,096.60 per year, according to UT’s salary payscale.

Is it possible that Tennessee’s athletic program is finally sharing the pain of the state’s massive budget cuts?

While there are hundreds of people at UT, mostly women, who are still willing to work full-time for considerably less than $20,000 per year, I somehow doubt the Vols are going to replace Phil Fulmer for an insulting $45K. 

But maybe the athletic department is plumb out of money following the $6-7 MILLION buyout for ousting Fulmer – and maybe the rest of UT won’t lend it to them this time, either, after footing the bill for the previous enormous buyout for the previously-ousted football coach.

Or maybe this ad is a pro-forma piece of HR gobbledegook which isn’t fooling anyone.

An advertisement for a bank specializing in wealth management and private banking, appearing in last Sunday’s New York Times (11/16/08)

“First Republic maintains our relationship over the phone and over the Internet — it’s a beautiful thing.”

LEE BRATHWAITE, TELECOM EXECUTIVE
LAURA BRATHWAITE, ATTORNEY AT LAW, WIFE AND MOTHER

Successful, working couple, and hey –they’re even black. 

Thank you, I get it: First Republic Bank is More PC-Than-Thou.

But am I the only one who notices something missing here?

What a pleasant set of interviews I had this morning, with some very good people who do very important work.

And boy, do I not want that job.

I left those gentle souls today feeling too big and loud for the rooms we were in, which is pretty amazing considering I’m barely 5’3” and mostly an introvert, besides. Wow.

At one point I was introduced to someone I’d be working with, and the supervisor all but shushed me when I said “Hello, there!”

Using my OUTSIDE voice, apparently.

Once I caught on to the fact that the job was all about being smaller, I started playing the game where you give the right answers that make the person nod approvingly and write things down. “I like being concise,” I said, then giving an example of how concise I could be.

Yes, yes, the woman nodded, writing “concise” on her notes.

She was a shy person, and had carefully typed her list of interview questions ahead of time, with 2 inches of white space between each to write things in.   “Nugget,” she wrote, nodding. “Summary.”

Under “Are you an Extrovert or an  Introvert?”  she noted  “Introvert, with surprises.”  (I quite liked that one!)

This is a research job as opposed to a clerical job, and much better paid as well. But while I was hoping it might be a way to get in the job door for future things, it seems I’d be sitting in a basement cubicle embedded in a labyrinth of offices carved out of what used to be the “bargain basement” of a vast (and long-defunct) department store. Where I’d hardly ever see anyone else at all, let alone any natural light.

Where I’d spend 8 hours a day looking stuff up on computers and whispering a lot.

I called my husband from the parking lot afterwards, and told him that I hoped he wouldn’t tell me I wasn’t trying hard enough if I actually was offered this job and then  said “no” to it.

I also told him I was going to go home now and look up some information on my computer about getting another degree.

Here’s a valuable story, brought to you in today’s CNN:

A  photo of a breast-feeding Angelina Jolie will be featured on the November cover of W Magazine.  In the picture, an actual, partial view of her actual breast shows, along with a tiny baby’s hand, so you will even be able to tell what she’s doing (eww, eww, EWWW!) with that breast.

I didn’t even know Angelina Jolie had breasts! 

She’s certainly never shown them in public before.  I’m also shocked that any modern-day publisher would ever be so crass as to feature Angelina Jolie’s partially-exposed breasts in a magazine, much less on the magazine’s cover!

Nursing mothers and their appallingly inappropriate (not to mention just plain icky) breasts.  What are we going to do about them, America?  Will we allow this outrage to stand?   

Humor is highly subjective. I know this, but it still surprises me how often I think something is funny when someone else doesn’t, or vice versa.

It’s impossible to avoid the political world at all these days, nor the humor that goes with it. Personally, I think humor is one of the things that saves the human soul, and I’ve greatly enjoyed many of the political jokes I’ve heard lately:

Sarah Palin and McCain are a good pair. She’s pro-life and he’s clinging to life.” –Jay Leno

Q. Why did Joe Biden get a hair transplant?
A. To hide the mark of the beast.

Q. Why is Barack Obama so thin and scrawny?
A. If he were any heavier he wouldn’t be able to walk on water.

Sarah Palin right now is training for tomorrow night’s vice presidential debate in Arizona. And she says it has really helped her on foreign policy, because from Arizona she can see Mexico. –David Letterman

I’ve seen both of SNL’s Tina Fey parodies of Sarah Palin, too, and thought they were brilliant as well as funny.

The “Sarah Palin Disney Trailer“, however, I’m not quite so sure about. I doubt Sarah Palin was ever a woman who stayed at home making lasagna and sharpening her kids’ ice skates, for one. So why set up this particular image of her, and then make fun of it? What are we really making fun of: Palin, or stay-at-home mothers? Palin, or women who seek (or enjoy) power?

I’d hate to live in a world where it was no longer acceptable to make fun of public figures. I have never been a soccer mom, and never wanted to be. I think politicians are funny. I think people in general are funny. But making a joke of the skills and relevance of stay-at-home motherhood hits me wrong somehow, particularly as “stay at home mother” probably isn’t even a category which ever included Sarah Palin to begin with.

I am suspicious when something is so easy to make fun of that we change a real person to fit the joke, rather than vice versa. In other words, in this video, I’m afraid Sarah Palin may not be the real target.

Could be I’m making too much of nada, though, and it’s all just good, clean fun. What do you think, readers?
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Related Posts:
Sarah Palin’s email and a couple of goats
Palin V Obama: Which one makes me evil, again?

Another irreverent “Target moment” by Sarah Haskins

Three Cheers for Three Wednesday Women:

Wednesday Woman #1:

Michelle Allen, of Middletown, Ohio was arrested last Saturday for allegedly chasing children and blocking traffic while wearing a cow suit. 

The Middletown Journal did not speculate on the reason for the cow suit, besides the obvious fact that it made for the best mug shot ever.

Ms. Allen reportedly wore the cow suit again on Tuesday morning for her court appearance.

Why? you might ask.

Well, I might ask in return, Why the hell not?

***

Wednesday Woman #2:

I do not know the difference between a functional saxaphone and good martini, but University of Tennessee music professor Connie Frigo sure does. 

And this week, Dr. Frigo went to bat for my 12-year-old daughter, who  is taking lessons from one of her graduate students.   The student teacher reported to Dr. Frigo that my daughter, a first-time sax player, had been provided with a seriously defective saxaphone by a local music store. 

Dr. Frigo fired off an email to me: This hits a nerve with me for many reasons!  and asked us to allow her to communicate with the music store on our behalf. 

She called the manager, and spoke with the repair man, whom she knows, and insisted they make things right for us. 

I will come down there, she told them, and look at the instrument myself, if I have to.

She called me back.  Take the sax in and ask for the manager by name.  Here’s his name.

And tell him Dr. Frigo sent you… 

(Wow, marvelled my daughter when we went to the store. He sure got NICE all of a sudden when we said her name, Mom…)

Ah, how much a woman after my own heart is the  Professor Connie Frigo.

Frigo is featured in this month’s issue of The Saxaphone Journal. 

She is also featured in this month’s Almostgotit Family Gallery of Heroes.

***

Wednesday Woman #3

Superfunny supergenius Sarah Haskins, for her video, Feeding your F—ing Family.

Hat tip to Beyond Help for this video on my favorite (not!) topic, which more politely might be subtitled “How the Media are Messing with Our Mommy Minds.”

I’ve been defending the Knoxville News-Sentinel a lot lately.  Some of my friends are on staff there, after all.  But today I read a news article written by their reporter who regularly covers the University of Tennessee, in which he referred to “sorority girls.”

I beg your pardon?

When I went to college, I learned from both professors and peers that the proper term for myself was “woman.”  Sure it felt funny at first, and a little thrilling too.  The assumption, however, was that I was becoming an autonomous adult, thus making the term “woman” both formative and accurate.

After a little online research  (Q: can things really have regressed this much?!?) I discovered that college women these days often do refer to themselves as “girls,” because the word “woman” feels too old.  But they also assert that the male counterpart for “girl” is “guy, dude, boy – whatever.”    Not “man.”

No one, still, claims that “girl” is the proper feminine equivalent of “man.”

I also doubt that any newspaper style sheet would condone the use of “Fraternity dudes” in a formal news story.

The story was written by a guy/dude/boy whose main beat is the university.  Of all people, he should know better.  Furthermore, the story itself is about campus security, and the current initiatives to protect female students, in particular. 

The only conclusion I can draw from the News-Sentinel today is that women’s vulnerabilities turn women into impotent little girls — while also turning news writers into patronizing old farts. 

Women, girls, “whatever.”  What do you think, readers?

Update: I emailed the writer, and may not have been the only one.  In any case, in the online version of the article, the term “sorority girls” – beginning of 3rd paragraph — now reads “sorority member (sic)”  Should we be forgiving??